One billion cars clog traffic worldwide

Photo: Remko Tanis Cross-posted from Climate Progress . Driven by demand from countries like China, India, and Brazil, the global market for automobiles is accelerating faster than ever. According to an analysis from the auto trade journal Ward's , there are now over one billion cars, light-, medium-, and heavy-duty trucks on roads around the world, up from 980 million at the end of 2009. In just half a year, the global auto fleet expanded by around 35 million vehicles. That's the second-biggest increase ever. The U.S. is still has the biggest population of cars and trucks -- one for every 1.3 people in the country. But the American fleet is not growing much, only about 1 percent a year. The explosion in automobile deployments is coming from China, where registrations grew by 27.5 percent, bringing the country's vehicle population to 78 million. That increase was more than...